ir
locality.

_The Haidah._--Queen Charlotte's, and the southern extremity of the
Prince of Wales' Archipelago, are the parts to which the Indians
speaking the Haidah language have been referred. In case, however, any
members of their family extend into the British territory, they are
mentioned here.

Three Haidah tribes are more particularly named--

_a._ The _Skittegat_.

_b._ The _Cumshahas_--a name remarkably like that of the _Chimsheyan_,
hereafter to be noticed.

_c._ The _Kygani_.

_The Tungaas._--This is the name of the language of the most Northern
Indians, with which the Hudson's Bay Company comes in contact. It is
Koluch; and more Russian than British.

The chief authority is Dr. Scouler. The whole of his valuable remarks
upon the North-western Indians, is a commentary upon the assertion
already made as to the extent which we have formed our ideas of the
Aboriginal American upon the Algonkins and Iroquois exclusively; and his
facts are a correction to our inferences. In what way do the moral and
intellectual characters of the Western Indians differ from those of the
Eastern? I shall give the answer in Dr. Scouler's only terms. They are
less inflexible in character. Their range of ideas is greater. They are
imitative and docile. They are comparatively humane.[77] No scalping. No
excessive torture of prisoners. No probationary inflictions.

Now--whether negative or positive--there is not one of those
characteristics wherein the Western American differs from the Eastern,
in which he does not, at the same time, approach the Eskimo. In the
absence of the scalping-knife, the tomahawk, the council fire, the
wampum-belt, the hero chief, and the metaphorical orator, the Eskimo
differs from the Ojibway, the Huron, and the Mohawk. True. But the
Haidah and the Chimsheyan do the same.

The religion of the Algonkin and Iroquois is Shamanistic; like the Negro
of Africa they attribute to some material object mysterious powers. As
far as the term has been defined, this is Feticism. But, then, like the
Finn, and the Samoeid of Siberia, they either seek for themselves or
reverence in others, the excitement of fasting, charms, and dreams. As
far as the term has been defined this is Shamanism. Now lest our notions
as to the religion of the Indians be rendered unduly favourable through
the ideas of pure theism, called up by the missionary term _Great
Spirit_, we must simply remember, in the first place, that the term i